Norm Teahouse

Two coworkers of mine were recently in Japan visiting the gardens where DAVIDsTEA gets our matcha from, but as part of their trip they visited quite a few other places in Japan. Mostly within Tokyo, including this tea house that they really fell in love with.

They’ve been back for a couple days now, and of course they brought SO MUCH tea home with them that they’ve graciously let me peck at while working in the office. I absolutely loved living vicariously through them for the last week or so, and hearing the stories about all the tea (and non-tea) related things they did.

This is actually the first tea from their Japan haul that my worked brewed up upon getting back, and she actually brewed it up gongfu at her desk which is the first time I’ve ever seen her make tea gongfu within the office. I actually had to help her find an appropriate easy gaiwan (we have no shortage of teaware lying around), and measure everything out water and tea leaf wise. My reward was the first steep of the session after the initial rinse which was very good.

This black tea was quite sweet off the get go, with a very syrupy mouthfeel and strong notes of honey and dark woods alongside a more mineral finish and some undertones of sweet potato and red fruit. Complex, and very mouth watering. It would, of course, have been interesting to see the evolution throughout the session, but this was her tea session that I was graciously invited to share in this early moment.

They did bring a lot of tea back from this company though so I’m hoping to get to explore a little more in the future!